


Saviour, Part II

by elfin



Series: Survivor [2]
Category: Brimstone
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 05:02:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12051879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfin/pseuds/elfin
Summary: Four demons try to rid themselves of the Devil before Zeke sends them back.





	Saviour, Part II

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: involves the death of a minor character (not explicit)  
> Re-write of my old fic, Lancing.

This was Ezekiel’s favourite diner. Strong coffee, fat pancakes, plus it was clean. The bright red topped stools and the white tiles made him smile every morning. He ordered his usual breakfast, soaked the stack in maple syrup and was almost done when his companion joined him, dressed n a sharp blue suit and crisp white shirt, and matching hat. His jacket was draped over his shoulder like a afterthought and was staying there of its own accord. Zeke wondered if he should say something, if anyone else would notice. All he said in the end was,

‘Good morning.’

Lucifer smiled like the sun coming up and if that wasn’t a really good look on that devilish face. ‘Good morning, Ezekiel.’

‘I got your note.’

‘Did you?’

‘Alfred Lord Tennyson. You’re an old romantic.’ He was teasing, and for the moment Lucifer was allowing it. Max had looked up the lines for him on the internet, they were from a poem called ‘I’m a Fool to Love You’. ‘Although Max tell me you bastardised it.’ That broke the tension, thankfully. Lucifer shrugged, and reached for a tin containing cutlery. Here, in public and in the cold light of day, it seemed even the Devil himself seemed to be uncomfortable with the whole concept of the morning after the night before. Zeke took pity. ‘I saw one of your brothers earlier.’

‘Oh?’ He was impressed by how much Lucifer was able to put into that one word: irritation, frustration, curiosity, and a hint of jealousy that made him smile. ‘Why does he look the same as you?’

‘He doesn’t. Your fragile human mind just thinks he does because that’s what it sees.’

‘Why is that what it sees?’

‘You couldn’t comprehend the sight of an angel. Your eyes would burn out of your skull and you –‘ he poked a perfectly manicured fingernail into Ezekiel’s chest, ‘-would be sent straight back to Hell.’

Zeke glanced down, smile growing wider on his face. ‘But why this?’ He swept one hand up and down what to him was a wiry frame, angular face, black hair like silk. He was aware there were answers here he didn’t really want to hear. ‘Does everyone see what I see?’

‘This because something in us picks up on something in you and projects it back. A old memory, most likely, or an amalgamation of memories. Maybe even a fantasy.’ Lucifer’s mouth quirked into a suggestive leer.

Zeke ignored it; it was his habit, nothing more. The Devil couldn’t be expected to change his stripes over night. Even last night. ‘So other people – our waitress – she doesn’t see what I see?’

‘No.’ He smiled. ‘Ask your friend Max what she sees when she looks at me.’

He made a mental note to do that, preferably when he was alone. He finished the last of his pancakes and reached for his coffee. ‘What? No disparaging comments about wasting my time with pointless human rituals?’ It really was disconcerting, the way Lucifer’s jacket was staying put without him having to hold it in place.

The Devil ignored him, which in itself was odd. ‘What did my brother want?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t get a chance to speak to him.’ Now that he came to think about it…. ‘It was odd, actually. He was outside my apartment building when I got down there but before I could say anything, he’d vanished. Max said she hadn’t seen anyone, thought I was imagining it. He looked… wrong.’ A knot of concern twisted inside him. ‘Scared. Shit. I was distracted….’

‘I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s an angel, he’s about as safe as it’s possible to be down here on earth. Maybe it was fear for you, Ezekiel. After all, you did... dance with the Devil.’

‘Maybe.’

Long fingers settled on his thigh. ‘I have many brothers. I’m the only one you should concern yours-‘ the warning cut off abruptly, the touch to his leg suddenly becoming a vice-like grip. He flinched, reached to pry him off and at the same time looked up. What he saw in the Devil’s face stilled him. There were flames in the usually dark eyes, jaw locked open in a silent scream, his whole body ridged.  
   
‘Luci?’  
   
In the next moment he was gone, vanished, leaving the girl refilling Zeke’s coffee blinking in confusion. Then reality righted itself, closed the void the Devil’s unexpected appearance and disappearance had left, and the waitress clearly decided she’d been imagining things.  
   
Zeke dropped enough cash to cover his meal and left the diner, looking around for a clue as to where his erstwhile boss had abruptly departed to. A second later, he heard the sirens and started to follow the noise.

*

At first, Stone couldn’t work out what had happened. It was a crime scene, no doubt about that. The colour of the forensics guys hurrying to get out of the warehouse was the first clue that this wasn’t just a run of the mill killing. But as he approached the door everyone else seemed to be coming out of, he could feel the Devil close by. 

Once he was inside, he found out why no one wanted to be there. The warehouse had once been owned by a chemical company. Barrels and massive open vats had been left behind, a bath big enough to wash a herd of buffalo in was framed in crime scene tape. When he got closer he could see what was making hardened pros practically run away. 

It was an educated guess that the reddish brown stuff lining the dirty porcelain had once been a body, a human body, alive and breathing. He could make out lumps that looked like organs, white shards of shattered bone, an eyeball. He felt a little sick himself. 

A strangled noise made him look up, across the open space to where Lucifer was kneeling at the edge of the bath, staring into it, an expression on his face that Zeke really didn’t like. It sent a sharp icy chill down his spine. What did it take to knock the Devil off axis?

‘What is it?’ He was closer to the mess than Zeke would have wanted to be but surely he’d seen worse - inflicted worse - than this.

‘This was Jehudiel.’

He wasn’t sure he’d heard right. ‘What’s Jehudiel?’

‘One of my brothers. I believe you knew him.’

The idea crashed over him. The angel? ‘But… that’s not possible.’ He couldn’t - wouldn’t - accept that the human remains before him was once the angelic being who saved Ros, saved him in a manner of speaking. He and the angel - Jehudiel - had become friends, in a way. He’d seen in Zeke something he’d never seen in himself; a good person. ‘I didn’t think you could be killed like this. This… this was a human being.’

But Lucifer wasn’t fakIng it, he seemed to be sinking into himself. ’I felt it, when he ceased to be. A hole ripped in the world.’ Zeke could feel his grief building quickly; pressure like an on coming storm, the air around them thickening with it. He wondered how dangerous the Devil in mourning was and considered his eternal tortures meted out in Hell. If that was his reaction to a telling off by Dad, what was the death of a sibling going to mean for the world? Come to think of it, what was God’s reaction going to be to the murder of one of his… children?

Zeke started around the bath, his foot coming down on something soft. He looked, hoping not to see a severed foot or hand, and instead saw a small, leather bound book, stained with blood. Picking it up, he slipped it into a pocket inside his coat and made his way carefully around to where Lucifer was kneeling. 

Like approaching a frightened animal, Zeke touched his hands to the Devil’s shoulders and crouched behind him. ‘Come on. We need to get out of here.’ Not unexpectedly, he met with resistance. ‘There’s nothing you can do now.’

To his relief, Lucifer came up to his feet and allowed himself to be steered outside, away from the unusually subdued police presence. Ezekiel didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t a situation he’d ever imagined he would have to deal with. He watched, helpless, as Lucifer lifted his hands to his face and raked his nails across closed eyes. He made a low sound like a wounded animal and all Zeke could do was stand there and gape. He couldn’t come up with a single word that seemed adequate. Hesitantly, he lifted a hand but before he dared to touch, Lucifer threw back his head and cried out, a deafening sound Zeke could almost taste in the back of his throat. 

When he looked up again, the Devil was gone.

*

His only clue was the book he’d found, so he took it to the bookshop where he’d bought the copy of Milton just a day or two ago. The old man who ran it only told him what he already knew; it was old. It was possibly priceless. He thought the pages might have been made of dried animal skins, definitely handle with care. It was written in Latin, he said, although he didn’t recognise the drawings in the margins and he couldn’t translate it. Zeke thought the drawings resembled the runes tattooed on his body, but he immediately dismissed the idea that Lucifer or one of his brothers wrote it. Why would an angel write the method of their own destruction?

He thanked the old man and left, heading back to his apartment, surprised that Lucifer was there waiting for him. Or maybe he wasn’t waiting for him. He was sitting on the window ledge, head back against the wall, looking distracted and impossibly lost.

He slipped his coat off, the book still hidden in a pocket. Something was keeping him from sharing about it but he didn’t know what. Sympathy would have been the right reaction under these circumstances if it hadn’t been the Devil. He had no idea what to do or say. 

In the end he went for, ’I’m sorry.’

Lucifer looked up. ‘Thank you.’

‘Have you any idea… how?’

‘There’s only one way and it’s old, old magic. The spirit has to be bound to the flesh. After that…’ The catch in the usually confident voice was unnerving. If he couldn’t have faith that the Devil would at least remain untouched by events up here, would remain a constant, he wasn’t sure what he had left. He at least had enough imagination filled in the blank. From what he’d seen, Jehudiel had been flayed alive.

‘You said, back at the start, that some of the souls had been with you since the beginning. Is this one of those?’

Lucifer shook his head. ‘To trap and kill an angel… that’s knowledge older than me. It’s the first knowledge, before He created man, when nothing existed outside of His realm.’

‘You’re saying I can’t send this one back?’

‘I’m saying whoever did this didn’t escape from Hell.’ Or, Zeke thought, they had a book of instructions. But still he didn’t mention it.

*

If he wasn’t going to ask the Devil to translate the book, his only other option was a professor of languages at the university. He asked at a couple of desks and was eventually pointed to the office of Professor Joesph Macht. 

He didn’t have to do much talking to get himself through the door, just sowed him the book and the elderly professor all but wet himself, salivating over the leather, leaving the door hanging open as he took the small tome over to his desk, holding it with reverence.

‘Where did you get this?’ His voice had dropped to a low murmur, as if he was afraid to speak too loudly in its presence.

‘At a crime scene.’ Zeke closed the door and hovered close to where the professor was turning the pages with care, as if the ancient parchment might turn to dust at his touch. Ezekiel doubted those who’d used its contents to trap and murder an angel had been so careful; after all, they’d left their murder weapon behind. 

‘It’s a Black Book, a book of rituals used, reputedly, by religious men in the twelfth century to exorcise demons.’

‘What language is it in?’

‘Latin. Although I don’t know what these runes down the sides of the pages mean. The pages aren’t made of paper but of animal skin. It’s rumoured that the rituals are written in the blood of those same animals that were sacrificed….’

‘What does it say?’

Macht turned back to the front cover and read what appeared to be the inscription on the first page.

‘’Amplecti et respuere congregabo omnes angeli qui in inferno, nostra victoria exultantes, verba haec sunt arma et quiescere faciam regnum Satanae.’ Roughly translated, ‘Gather you all who embrace good and reject the fallen angels in Hell, rejoice that victory can be ours, these words are weapons to bring to an end the reign of Satan.’ He glanced up at Ezekiel. ‘It’s not a good idea to read from a Black Book.’  
Zeke was sure there had to be more to performing a ritual, satanic or otherwise, than just reading aloud. ’Yeah, yeah. Is there anything in there that can… summon an angel against his will and… trap him?’  
The professor looked up at him. ‘Do you… believe in all this?’

‘Let’s just say, I’m open minded about the whole thing.’

Macht hesitated, but he went through the book page by page, skim-reading the incantations until he stopped, about half way in. 

‘This one… I think this summons the Devil.’

‘You think?’

‘In circulum vocant lucifer. Cogere nobis manifestaturus es te ante nos ad gratiam coram vobis et nobis, ut te affligeres in conspectu Dei tui quae creavit eos.’

It was the cry of pain and fury that surprised Ezekiel. He’d been almost certain it wouldn’t work, and even if it did, the worst he’d imagined he’d see was Lucifer appearing before them in his usual suit and fedora, tapping his foot on the floor and demanding an explanation, expression alone promising Ezekiel some imaginative punishment later. 

He wasn’t even close. As the professor finished reading the lines, flames leapt up from the carpet in the centre of the room, and in the midst of the fire was something black and charred, something not human yet still recognisable as it tried to rise from its knees, horned head thrown back, taloned fingers clawed in pain. 

‘Tibi precipimus -‘

‘Stop!’ Zeke grabbed the book, snapping it closed it, causing Macht’s head to snap up, eyes to dart around the room. The Devil, the fire, were gone the moment the professor stopped reading.

‘What happened?’

Zeke stared at the carpet for a second, reassuring himself it was over. There wasn’t a mark on the fine wool.

‘You didn’t see that?’

‘See what?’

He let the air out of his lungs. He didn’t need it anyway. ‘Thank you, for your help.’ He swept the book back into his coat pocket, ignoring the pained sound Macht made in the back of his throat, grabby hands reaching for it. He left before the professor could make it to his feet.

*

To say he was worried by the time he got back to his apartment was an understatement. Insubordination was one thing, there was even that time he’d shot the Devil in the eyes. But what he’d seen in the professor’s office… that was different, that was Satan in his hellish form, the form he’d felt but never seen. That was something altogether different. The black book had power older than Lucifer himself, meaning that whoever had killed Jehudiel wasn’t necessarily a demon. He or she could be a religious zealot, a wayward Satanist or just some jerk who’d stumbled across the book and had decided to find out what it did. Of course, the jerk would have to be able to read Latin.

 

Zeke hesitated on the threshold of his apartment, pushed the door open and peered in cautiously.

‘Lucifer?’

There was no answer. Of course, the Devil was unlikely to give him a warning before he took his revenge. He doubted they’d done any permanent damage, but Lucifer was going through enough with the brutal murder of his brother, he didn’t need to be dealing with the repercussions of an incantation obviously meant to cause him pain.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Since when did he care so much? This was Lucifer, the Devil, tormentor of souls, prince of lies. Nothing could hurt him, really hurt him. But something could, the incantations in the black book. Pulling it from his pocket, he dropped it to the bed. He could understand trying to rid the world of the Devil, but why kill an angel? That didn’t make any sense.

He needed to go back to the crime scene. He’d left quickly because the police had been all over it, and the weirdness and brutality of it would mean they’d want to pin it on someone and close the case as quickly as possible. Zeke didn’t want to be that someone. But he needed a better look around. If they’d left the book, perhaps whoever had done this had been stupid enough to leave other clues, or might even return to try to find it. As much as he didn’t want to return, he didn’t have any choice.

He could only hope Lucifer was okay until he decided to make his presence known.

*

It was early evening when Ezekiel made it back to the warehouse. Thankfully the police had cleared the bath, forensics painstakingly removing what had been left of Jehudiel for analysis. There were tiny pieces remaining, and he forced himself not to look too closely at what they might once have been.

He searched the floor around the bath, inadvertently putting his fingers into a patch of red still sticky on the tiles. As he lifted his hand, he watched the stain pool into a single drop on the end of his fingers, crystallising in front of his eyes and falling, shattering into hundreds of tiny shards when it hit the floor. 

He stood up and stepped back in one jerky motion. He was used to seeing the strangest things but that was just creepy enough that he decided there was nothing else to find here and that he should just leave. That was when he noticed it; a torn piece of paper sticking to one of the tiles under the bath. Reaching down, he plucked at it and when it came up he saw it wasn’t a piece of paper but a Polaroid photograph, torn at one corner. He turned it over. The picture was blurry, the colour washed out, but it was unmistakably a photo of Lucifer, taken outside Zeke’s apartment.

Suddenly, shockingly, he knew what had happened. They’d read the wrong ritual. They’d summoned an angel in place of the Devil and because the two looked the same to them, they hadn’t realised. They’d killed the wrong man. The question was, did they know?

*

He had no idea how to contact Lucifer. He’d never needed to, never wanted to, until now. He didn’t have a phone number he could just call, didn’t have an address he could sit outside until the Devil got home. He stood on the road outside the warehouse and out loud he told Lucifer that he needed to speak to him, that it was important. urgent. That he was sorry about the summoning in the professor’s office. He made sure not to actually pray, he just said it, and hoped Lucifer could hear him.

He didn’t know what would happen if the Devil didn’t exist. Would Hell be left without a ruler, without someone to keep those millions of damned souls in checK? Or would God send another unfortunate being to take his place. But it wasn’t Hell he was worried about. As much as he hated to admit it even to himself, he did care, he was concerned, for Lucifer himself. The night before last might not have meant anything in the grand scheme of things, but something had fundamentally changed between them. 

Max was at her post when he got back to his apartment block. He asked her if his friend had dropped in, was careful not to try to describe him given as how she apparently didn’t see him the way Ezekiel did, but she said no one had been by all day, just the usual residents and hookers.

He thanked her and went on up, grabbed a beer from his fridge - part of a six pack the Devil was either being kind and letting him keep when the contents of his pocket reset every day, or he didn’t know was there. He couldn’t help but think that the best course of action was to destroy the black book, however valuable it might be. That way, whoever killed Jehudiel by accident wouldn’t be able to try again.

He’d left it on the bed, and his heart sank like a stone when he couldn’t find it. 

‘That really hurt, Ezekiel.’ He’d never been so happy to hear the Devil’s dulcet tones as at that moment. He schooled his expression into what he hoped was humble apology and turned to look at his boss, relieved to see he at least looked none the worse for his experience. 

‘I’m sorry, truly. I honestly didn’t think it would work by just reading it. I thought you needed… symbols and blood and all that stuff they use in horror movies.’

‘The key term there being movies, Ezekiel.’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Of course. I am the Devil, if you recall.’ Zeke thought there would be more, but Lucifer suddenly looked distracted. 

‘What is it?’

‘Do you hear that?’

‘Hear what?’

‘Voices.’

‘You’re hearing voices?’ Too late he realised his sarcasm was out of place, he realised what was happening. ‘Lucifer!’ He hadn’t got further than ‘Luci’ when the Devil vanished from his presence.

‘Shit!’

He took the stairs down three at a time, got to the empty foyer and realised he didn’t have a clue where to go. They could have summoned the Devil from absolutely anywhere. But he thought, he hoped, they’d return to where they knew, to where they’d had privacy enough to torture one terrified, screaming angel to death, so why not a second?

Zeke hailed a taxi and flashed his badge.

*

The first thing he heard was a scream, high pitched and utterly inhuman, and it was both horror and relief that vied for top billing inside him. He ignored both and ran, bursting through the heavy plastic that hung at the entrance to the warehouse floor, firing two shots before the four assembled men could react. He aimed at their eyes, just in case, and it resulted in one more demon sent straight back to hell.

The chanting that had sounded like a background hum abruptly ceased. He turned on the balls of his feet and fired two more bullets, hitting two more of them, taking out an eye in each case. It wasn’t enough to vanquish them but it incapacitated them long enough to stop the fourth in his tracks and release his soul back to damnation.

Each time he fired he hit his mark, not a single bullet going wild. The rage within him was focusing him like nothing else ever had, and that in itself was being fuelled by what he could see out of the corner of his eye, the sight he was trying very hard not to see at all.

The two he hadn’t finished with tried to make a run for it, but he leapt on the back of the closest one, reaching around and pushing his index finger relentlessly into his one remaining eye. He let go only when he felt the searing heat of a soul flooding out, stumbled back and looked for the fourth. For one horrible moment, he’d thought he’d lost him, then he heard a crash behind him, out in the foyer, and he chased after it. 

The fourth demon held up the black book in front of him, other hand clamped over his missing eye. Zeke raised his gun and fired through skin and bone to take out the second eye. When it was over, he picked up the book and pocketed it, holstered his weapon, and returned to the last place on earth, or indeed any planet, where he wanted to be. Back to the warehouse floor.

Lucifer was dangling from a hook in a low metal beam across the ceiling, shredded, bloodied wrists trapped in tight cuffs. His clothes were burnt, charred strips clinging to the skin of his chest, arms, legs, everywhere. Trying to ignore the churning in his stomach, Zeke wrapped one arm around Lucifer’s waist and lifted him from the hook, lowering him carefully to shattered feet incapable of taking his weight. He gave a cry of pain as his legs buckled and Zeke had no choice but to follow him down, to cradle his head to stop it smashing on the concrete floor. 

‘It’s okay, I’ve got you.’

He looked the Devil over. If he were human he’d be dead already, Zeke just didn't know if he was dying. 

‘Sh-‘ Broken arms tried to lift what remained of hands to Ezekiel’s wrecked sweatshirt. ‘Sho-‘ Going by the damage Zeke could see on the outside, he guessed the fire that caused it must have got into his lungs, burnt his throat. The binding ritual presumably was keeping him trapped inside the devastated fleshy prison. Zeke wished he knew more about it.

‘You’re asking me to shoot you. But if I destroy your eyes will you leave or will I be killing you?’ He felt wet drops on his face, actually looked up to see what was dripping and if it was dangerous before he realised they were his own tears. 

‘Ple- Ze- sho-‘

He nodded, he didn’t see he had any choice. He could only hope the Devil knew more than him. ‘Okay.’ Reaching with one hand for his gun he lay Lucifer’s head with care onto the floor. Point blank range, the muzzle of the automatic twitched an inch above an eye red, blood pooling within it, eyelid blinking rapidly. 

Zeke hesitated. Either he was going to get blinded by an escaping soul, albeit a grateful one for once, or he was going to end what those bastard demons had started and Satan himself would be no more.

‘Ze-‘ There was so much pain and suffering and pleading in that one syllable. 

‘Okay.’

With a shaking breath he let off the safety and pulled the trigger, moved to the left and squeezed it a second time. 

The shots were deafening, but to his utter relief the black holes the bullets left filled with light. He scooted backwards as it burst from the ravaged vessel and twisted up through the air. For a moment Zeke thought perhaps all was forgiven, that God was going to take back his favourite son, but it was the ground that opened up and the light poured downwards. 

*

The next three days passed second by awful second. In a spark of inspiration, Zeke tracked another couple of demons through the sale of two spell books from the shop across the road from his favourite diner, the one owned by Mitch, the old man he was slowly building up an uneasy friendship with; uneasy given the nature of the books he kept going in to enquire about. Mitch, he thought, wasn't buying the cop thing. He didn't blame him. 

He took the books to Professor Joesph Macht who told him they were modern fakes and the most damage they could do was if you they were dropped on unsuspecting cockroaches. He wanted to know what had happened to the black book. Zeke lied and told him he’d sold it to a collector. What he’d actually done was drop it into an oil drum fire that was keeping five homeless guys warm on the street outside his apartment building. He’d bought the guys coffee too, because for three days he had the same amount of money in his pocket that he’d woken up with. He wasn't hungry. 

All he did was hunted and slept. He didn't need to eat and didn’t want to. His stomach was a knot of anxiety and concern. He wasn’t even sure if his feelings were real; as Lucifer had previously enjoyed reminding him on a daily basis, he was dead. He didn't need food or water, air or sleep. He just needed to work. For the first time since he made this deal with the Devil, work was all he wanted to do. 

He talked to Lucifer even though he wasn’t there. He’d done it before, but only to rage at the injustice of his situation. Now was he talking as if to an imaginary friend as he walked down empty streets, broke into abandoned apartments, sat in front of the television with the sound turned down. He started by promising Lucifer he hadn’t given the four demons the black book.

‘Honest truth, swear to… your Dad, I guess. I mean, you’re in pain in the ass, in my ass particularly, but I wouldn’t do that to you. Don’t ask me why, it’s not like you haven’t spent seventeen years torturing me. But I wouldn’t. And I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry, about your brother.’

By day three, he was telling the Devil the baseball scores and sharing his incredulity about the teams that had managed to pull themselves up through the ranks in the time he’d been… away. 

On the fourth morning he woke slowly from a wonderful dream he couldn't recall. He was warm, comfortable, felt… loved. Just for a few moments before it melted away. Rolling over, he hoped to see Lucifer lying beside him, eyes alight with mischief, face set in a frustrated smile, ready to bring more petty chaos to the world. But he was alone. Hope faded, yet he never had the sort of dreams that left him feeling like this, not since his fifteen years in Hell. He was certain he hadn’t been alone, that at some point in the night Lucifer had been with him.

Closing his eyes again he imagined looking into those dark eyes, touching his fingers to that black, silk-like hair, maybe even kissing that angelic, demonic mouth… lips on his skin, a skilled tongue tracing the tattoos on his body as they already sang with recognition and need….

As Ezekiel’s orgasm ripped through him, he swore he heard gentle laughter in the room. This time he didn’t open his eyes, but the knot in his stomach unwound, leaving him hungry for pancakes.


End file.
